


I Could Walk Out

by Koren M (CyberMathWitch)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 13:05:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4747517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyberMathWitch/pseuds/Koren%20M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I could walk out.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>There's a door not five feet away from me, wood and glass and shiny brass hardware, and it would be so easy to just open it and leave.</i>
</p>
<p>For the prompt: "I could walk out, but I won't" [Heavenfaced - The National]</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Could Walk Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CloudAtlas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/gifts).



I could walk out.

There's a door not five feet away from me, wood and glass and shiny brass hardware, and it would be so easy to just open it and leave.

I take another drink of the wine Laura poured for me about thirty seconds after I walked in - eyes full of unasked questions about what she'd seen on the news, what Clint had told her based on what I'd told him...

Or maybe about the things she'd found by looking for the files herself.

I'd gotten used to the looks in the hearings, from the reporters, from people on the street that had come to Capitol HIll to gawk. There was no way to know what they'd read, how much of my history was really in those files that I'd revealed. I'd had just enough time to make sure Fury had kept his word to Clint, that Laura and the kids weren't in there, but no time to see what SHIELD really had on _me_.

And somehow, in the aftermath, I hadn't bothered to look since. 

Now I sat at their kitchen table - their perfectly normal, clean, comfortable kitchen table, across from Clint. There were crayons and a coloring book next to the dinner plates that hadn't been cleared yet. Always perceptive, Laura had sent the kids off to bed and then announced she was going for a walk. 

He was the one to break the silence.

"Don't do it."

"Do what?" Was my tone harsher than usual? Maybe. I took more wine to help smooth the edges. 

"Leave. I know you're thinking about it. Running. Hiding."

I laughed and it was sharper and more bitter than I'd expected it to be. "Where on earth could _I_ hide _now_?"

The look he gave me was clear and pinned me to my seat. "You know what I mean. And you _could_ hide anywhere you damn well pleased and we both know it. If you didn't want someone to recognize you, they wouldn't, no matter how many photos and videos of you were splashed all over the screens. Hell, Tasha, if you wanted to, you could probably stand as far from me as you are now, and if you didn't want me to recognize you, I wouldn't."

I doubted that. Just like I'd know his shadow from three rooftops away just by the angle of his stance, I think no matter what disguise I adopted he'd know it was me. I appreciated the vote of confidence, though.

"All these years - everything we've done. It's all been a lie." I spoke softly, under my breath but he heard me anyway. Clint shook his head, but I knew I was right. I'd seen it all come apart, I'd heard Zola. It had been chilling.

"SHIELD was corrupt, Clint. At the highest levels. The things that we've done, that I thought I was doing right for once, and now we just don't know." I stared into the red liquid in my glass. So often, people likened red wine to blood, but it was so radically different. It was cooler, less viscous, more translucent. It caught light and danced with it in a playful way, while blood always seemed to darken and pull light within it, holding on to it and only giving back brief hints.

And of course, there was the smell. Most people thought about comfort from smells like baking bread, or sugar and spice, even from the pine or lemon wood polish used in their childhood homes. Cooper and Lila would probably always have good memories associated with woodsmoke and cut grass, with apple spice muffins and the lavender from the family laundry detergent that cleaned their sheets and blankets and clothes.

For me it had always been gunpowder and blood. I'd thought, once upon a time, looking into the earnest eyes of a man who spun me fairy tales about saving people, clearing debts and making things right, of being free to make our own choices, that I could overcome that.

I believed that Clint had believed. That had been the perfect trick. Even Fury had been passionately honest about his goals, I didn't doubt those even now and wasn't that why they'd wanted him dead?

A foot jostled mine under the table and I looked up.

"SHIELD's over. That's done. You wanna talk about debts and ledgers? You've saved the world, saved billions of people. You took down Hydra. God knows how many lives that saved. Millions. They owe you their lives two times over. You wanna talk about debt, Natasha? They. Owe. You.

"And yeah, all our dirty laundry's out there for everybody to see. Yours and mine both. Someday, they're gonna go searching and I'm gonna have to look my kids in the eye and explain what I did and why I did it. They'll look for you, too, whether you're here or not. Only difference is, you walk out that door? You won't be here to explain it to them."

Like on a rooftop in Minsk over a decade ago, I look in his eyes and I know that he believes it. Clint's never been able to lie to me. I've never let him. In return, I don't know that _I've_ ever lied to _him_ , and that's a sudden realization that makes my stomach twist like I'm in freefall.

The only true things in my life, that have ever been true in my life, are in this room and this house. 

They are an arrow punching through my skin, and chicken frying on the stove, they are sundresses and sun porches and midnight feedings and skinned knees. Truth is being sewn up in a cheap hotel room in Bangkok without any anaesthesia and the cheap vodka to take the sting away, it's being pressed between the wall and my partner's body after taking a hit in a firefight, and being pressed between Clint and Laura in the shower under much more pleasant circumstances.

Lightning flashes outside the window, drawing my eyes back to the door. It's heat lightning. There probably won't be a storm until much later tonight, and I know I could get to the bus station well before it hits.

Laura will be back soon, she's always had impeccable timing. I have maybe another ten minutes before she walks back through the door, and in some ways that's as good as barring the gate. I don't look too closely at why that is, since I'm on a truth kick tonight and I might have a limit to how much I can handle at once. 

I could walk out.

There door is less than five feet away from me, and it would be easy to just open it and leave.

_But I won't._


End file.
